1 the only four species of butterflies I observed there (the others were, one Lycæna, and two Vanessa). "P. 115. Though far be it from me to say a word against the well-known Mr. Butler, he is strong in elaborating species-often, I think, needlessly; so that the species of Yphthima observed need not necessarily be new, especially as Dr. Walker had collected several specimens. "P. 116. May I venture to remark that the suggestion in the second paragraph, as to visiting those six localities in successive years, is scarcely plain. Owing to the great difference in number of species and specimens observable in different years, it would not lead to fair comparison, e.g., for one person to visit, say Egypt in May one year, and Greece in May the next year. The only way would be for a series of collectors to visit all those places in the proper seasons in the same year, and this should be continued over a series of years, and the results tabulated. "P. 125. The remarks on Dragon-flies are very interesting. They are one of the most ancient and most widely distributed of insects. In the Hawaiian Islands (where owing to the 2,000 miles' which separate them from America, a great obstacle is presented to the migration of fauna of all kinds) these Neuroptera form the most important feature of its insects, and those islands have many species peculiar. "P. 128. The black ants near Damascus, carrying head and tail aloft, are no doubt similar to a very beautiful species I observed in December last at Port Darwin, Northern Territory of Australia, only, that species was light brown and green. Its nest was formed of leaves of shrubs spun together in situ. "P. 133. The genus Mutilla of ants is very interesting to me, chiefly owing to its being mimicked in Brazil by a Coleopteron. "P. 129. I have given lengthy notes in my book, A Year in Brazil, on the economic habits of the species of Atta named Cephalotes and Abdominalis. "I am so pressed for time that I must crave forgiveness for this very hasty line, but I hope you may deem it of sufficient interest to show to Dr. Walker, and present to him my best thanks for bringing before our Society so valuable a record of his observations. The only fault I can find is that there are no loop-holes for discussion here, and not much opportunity for debate. I should have liked some theories advanced, as to causes of differentiation, typical forms, etc." From the Rev. A. Fuller, F.E.S. : "Pallant, Chichester, March 5. Allow me to thank the Council of the Victoria Institute through you for their invitation to be present on Monday evening to hear Dr. Walker's paper. Had I been in London I should certainly have tried to avail myself of it. I have read over the proof of the paper kindly forwarded with much interest, as it is by such detailed communications the range of species can alone be arrived at. Never having been in the East myself, I fear any comment of mine would be rather beside the question, otherwise I might add a note or two to the Swiss localities mentioned by Dr. Walker, for instance: "P. 111. Aporia Crategi. Two on hill-side, first week, August, 1882, Pontresina. "P. 113. Melitaea Didyma. Same time and place, moderately common. “ Argynnis Lathonia.* Four very fresh specimens. Same time and place, moderately common. *On referring to one of my cabinets I find a specimen of Argynnis Lathonia labelled Pontresina, Sept. 16, 1872. I distinctly remember catching it beneath the Roseg Hotel, a little way down the road that leads to the Roseg glacier.-F. A. W. "P. 112. Of the cosmopolitan character of Vanessa Cardui I might add that when in Canada two years back, I traced and captured it frequently, the whole distance from Quebec to Calgary, within forty miles or so of the Rocky Mountains. "P. 116. The original English specimen of Lycana Bætica is now in my possession, and the date of capture is marked on it, 12th August, 1859. I only name this as regards date in comparison with 10th December, when Dr. Walker caught it at Cairo." The Rev. T. W. Fowler, F.L.S., observes, with reference to p. 129, 1. 6, that “ Mutilla is not an ant, although often thus designated." He adds : “P. 120, 1. 7, etc. The best way to preserve insects is in sawdust and benzine with a little carbolic acid added, the insects and sawdust being packed in layers; spirit bottles are apt to get broken. “P. 120, near bottom. As a matter of fact there is a great deal of connexion between the Coleoptera of the circum-Mediterranean region. "P. 121, towards bottom. The genus Oxythyrea is much more widely spread than is here mentioned; species occur all over Africa as far south as the Cape of Good Hope; it does not, however, appear to be found in eastern Asia or in the New World." Another Correspondent writes : "Kersal Cottage, Prestwich. "I consider the Rev. F. A. Walker's paper of extreme interest, especially as giving a personal narrative, and reliable information of what actually came before his eyes. On the other hand, I hope it will not be considered hypercritical to suggest that the paper would have been rendered still more valuable, in my opinion, from a scientific point of view, had Dr. Standinger's catalogue of Macro-Lepidoptera of Europe and the East been consulted, and records of those species not personally observed, added. More than twentyfive of our British butterflies, for instance, doubtless occur in the list, as Dr. Walker (p. 109) observes, and the comparative tables of British and Eastern species would then have been rendered more perfect. As a record of personal observation, and considering the multitudinous difficulties and discomforts of pursuing any branch of natural science away from one's own country, Dr. Walker was indeed most painstaking and successful, and we cannot but congratulate him very heartily on the good results he obtained.” From Mr. A. H. Swinton, F.E. S., of Lansdown, Dane Park, Ramsgate, describing a visit to Burgos, says :— "Near the castle-wall above the town I found a bank of dwarf elder and thistles skeletoned to tissue by the ravages of Cynthia Cardui, the Painted Lady butterfly. The caterpillars of the butterfly are still feeding, and yet the butterflies are hovering over the blossoms, whose pink tassels appear to be wired on the stalks. Nature teems in its birth. In our country the Tortoiseshells (Vanessa Urtica) make similar capital out of the nettles. Can one longer marvel at the swarins of Belle Dames that periodically wing northward in long files? "Tall poplar avenues at Burgos stretch out along the valley, and form cool walks and drives in the direction of the monasteries. Walking one day in their shadows, I disturbed a Large Tortoiseshell butterfly (Vanessa Polyochlorus), whose presence I ascribed to the existence of certain stout and sturdy elms, an Alameda being quite an unusual sight in the sunny It is singular that the Earl of Sandwich should have stated to Evelyn, that before Philip II. transported these ornaments of our parks corn. to construct suburban walks and vistas, there were actually no elm-trees in Spain. I must, however, remark that there is an equally singular statement made by Hollingshed, to the effect that in Queen Elizabeth's time there were no asses in England, and that Spanish donkeys were then imported. Certain butterflies that appear to leap from the tree trunks to the earth and back again, are often noticed at the sunny leaf-strewn edges of these Castilian avenues. There are our own heath-frequenting Grayling and its congeners, Hipparchia Briseis and Statalinus. None of our commoner English butterflies, however, except the Meadow Browns, appear in excess in Castile. I noticed the Small Tortoiseshell on the nettles that fringe the old wall of Burgos, where a frame-coloured Cuckoo-Bee who was darting about had a perquisite of crannies, and near garden plots a few Cabbage Whites were flying. Rev. DR. WALKER. -I should like to say that I received a letter this morning from my friend, Mr. Frederick Pascoe, a well-known Fellow of the Linnæan Society, who pleads a previous engagement as the reason why he has been prevented from attending our Meeting this evening. I may add, with regard to the question of using spirits as a means of keeping beetles and other insects, that although I should not like it to be thought it does the insects any harm, Mr. Pascoe says they never do so well after they have been kept in spirits. I am under the impression that spirits injure beetles much less than they do grasshoppers, and that probably spirits are the only handy medium to which you can consign insects in the East to preserve them from decay. With regard to the great Scarabæus, Mr. Pascoe is inclined to keep up the old name, Scarabæus, and repudiates the designation "Ateuchus sacer," which I have given it in this paper. The CHAIRMAN.-As I happen to have had some experience of life in the East, and particularly in Palestine, there are one or two points that have come under my observation on which I may be permitted to offer a few remarks. One has reference to the interesting subject of ants. It is stated in the Book of Proverbs, that they are "exceeding wise," and "prepare their meat in the summer." Certain naturalists in Europe have for many years been in the habit of denying this statement, but within a recent period it has been clearly ascertained that it is actually true, and I am enabled to state from my own personal observation that there is no doubt whatever about it. In fact, it is one of the commonest things in country places in Palestine to see the ants busily engaged during the harvest season in carrying away corn, the seeds of grasses, and other things to their nests. They sometimes travel over great distances in order to do this, and nothing is more common than to see a long path, extending perhaps twenty, thirty, or forty yards, and more even than that, trodden down and worn quite bare by hundreds of thousands of ants passing to and fro upon it. They find out some place where wheat or barley, or some other grain, has fallen, or where there is a threshing-floor, and they start off in thousands to the spot, each ant carrying from it a seed of barley, wheat, grass, or whatever it may be. Another point of great interest in connexion with the proceedings of these little creatures is that it is said they are sometimes seen to bring out a store of provisions when it has been wet, in order some that the food may be dried in the sun. For my own part, I do not feel at all sure that this is so. It seems to me that what really does occur is this: when the harvest is over, and the ants have no chance of obtaining further supplies of grain, they set to work and dress the corn and seeds they have collected, taking off the husks, which they bring out and throw on the ground around their nests, so that one sees a great number of circular masses of chaff, which, if examined, are found to consist of the husks of corn and grass seeds. This is one of the instances we meet with, showing what very acute observers the writers of the Holy Scriptures were, and that there is no reason to doubt the statement of Agur in the Book of Proverbs, to which I have referred. Another question of great interest is that which is connected with another class of insects-the locusts. I have brought some of those insects here to-night, because it is not often that people in England can see them in what represents two different stages of their existence. (In the smaller bottle are locusts quite young-probably not more than a week or two old-small, black creatures.) The locusts traverse Eastern countries in immense numbers, thousands of millions. I have seen them in a column nearly a yard broad and a mile long, and I have noticed that when they meet with any obstruction they will go on either side of it; they do not run, but make progress by a series of jumps, and though the natives dig trenches for them, and throw earth over them in order to smother them, and sometimes pile them in great heaps and throw brushwood over them, and set fire to it, they are unable to exterminate them.* When growing they become of a yellow colour, and shed their skins. I have seen them hanging to the branches of the olive and other trees, and wriggling out of their skins, after which they grow to the size of the locusts shown in the larger bottle I have here, and it is when they have reached that stage that they do the enormous amount of damage we so frequently hear of. The account of the invasion of locusts given in the Book of Joel is accurate to the most minute particular. It is, indeed, a most wonderful description; but there is one expression in it which I think is rather obscure to us in England. I refer to the passage :-"He hath barked my fig-tree . . . . the branches thereof are made white." This, however, is exactly what the locusts do. They eat all the leaves off the fig-tree, and then eat the bark off the smaller branches where it is soft and succulent, and the ends are left standing out quite white, so as to give a weird appearance to the tree. They also clear the olive-tree, taking away every leaf, but not eating the bark. Another peculiarity they have is that they do not break their ranks. They stand together, perhaps eight or ten in a row, in one place, and eight or ten in another, just like cavalry, while the noise they make is said to be like that of running horses. * In a small Blue-book just published, Mr. S. Brown, Government engineer, reporting on the locust campaign in Cyprus in 1885-86, states that the estimated number of egg-cases was 5,076,000,000 in 1883–84, while in 1885–86 the number was slightly over 249,000,000.-Ed. In devouring the contents of a garden the noise they make is certainly very curious, and I never heard anything like it. It is a very terrible sound, because it means desolation. Each locust makes a little noise as it gnaws, and as that sound is multiplied by tens and hundreds of thousands, it produces a very singular impression. I remember one invasion of locusts, which will afford you an idea of the numbers in which they make their appearance. I had to travel a distance of some sixteen miles on horseback, and for the whole of that distance the locusts were like, snowflakes in the air, and my horse could not put his feet down without treading on them. I have thought it might be of interest to you to mention these things in connexion with what we read in the Biblical statements, because I feel from my long experience in the part of the world I have been speaking of, that the more we study the narratives in the Bible, and compare them with what is seen and recorded at the present day, the more clearly do we perceive how accurate was the observation of those who compiled the books of the Old Testament. Mr. J. STALKARTT.-I can vouch for the singular sound produced by the locusts, as well as for the fact that when flights of those insects have once settled, the difficulty is to get them up again. I have been in the indigo districts, where they have eaten up everything on the plantations, and the difficulty of the planters is how, when a swarm appears, to keep them going so as to prevent their settling, all the fire-pans and brass instruments they have being beaten to keep the insects on the wing. They may be seen flying in the distance like a red cloud, and sometimes they go hither and sometimes thither, but, whatever else they devour, they do not like the teaplant. They may settle in the scrub or jungle near, but they do not seem to care for the tea plantations,—I presume on account of the bitter or acrid matter in that plant. On all the other plants, as well as on the trees and grasses, they settle readily. From what we see in India as to the species of butterflies there, everything depends on the food furnished by the different districts. If in any part of the country certain plants or trees are destroyed, we do not find the butterflies that were originally there. Butterflies of particular species inhabit much the same kind of districts. There being no cabbages out there, you do not get the Cabbage Butterfly, and the same observation applies with regard to the moths. These bore into the trees, and if the trees are cut down, no more moths of the same kind are found in that district. Therefore, where there is a sameness in the grass or plants on which the caterpillars live in different parts of the world, we may expect to find the same species of butterflies. I have no doubt that Dr. Walker would derive a great deal of pleasure from a visit to some parts of India, where we have the most beautiful butterflies. In the neighbourhood of Darjeeling he might make a splendid collection of butterflies and bectles. With regard to what has been said as to swarms of moths, I may add that in India we had swarms of beetles. They fly at night, and settle on the trees, the leaves of which they eat up in a single evening. When they lay their eggs, the grubs are a great detriment to the cultivation of the places in |